Eliza Gething
#6

"Fourteen of you go in, one comes out alive,"  the man states, dead serious.

          "What the hell?"  Jess snaps, and does pretty much everyone else. 

          "Just joking, just joking," the man says, throwing his hands into the air, surrendering  "So the real rules are, fourteen go in, fourteen come out eventually.  Like Hunger Games with a few tweaks.  Once you get hurt so badly you can't stand up for exactly a minute, you get pulled out to be healed.  Then, that's it, you lose.

          "You may use your powers for the whole day, but when the sun goes down, you may not.  However, you can still go out and kill other contestants, just with no powers.  Last one standing gets to choose." The man states the last sentence very vaguely.

No one says anything, not even Lindsey. Lindsey purses her lips together, probably strategizing. I closes my eyes, deciding on what to do. Out of nowhere, Samuel crumples to the ground.

    Jack quickly run to his side. "What's wrong?"  he asks, panicked.

          "The p-pain,"  he groans.

          "Like I said, don't use your powers here,"  the man says with raising his eyebrows.

          Those words trigger something inside of me. Anger?  "Do you like hurting people?"  I snap.

          "No, I just don't want you to use your powers."

          "Do you not understand?!  Using our powers is like you breathing. It's like using our feet to walk. You gave us these powers, we had to adapt, and now your taking the powers away?! Hell, no!" The man just stares on, blank expression.

After several minutes of awkward silence, the man speaks up. "Then, adapt again. Okay, group one will enter the arena first. Follow her,"  the old man says, pointing to a girl in uniform. Jess gave the girl an evil glare. The girl must have done something to Jess. Mistake on her part. I spot Lillian giving the girl the same glare too. What's up with this girl? Does she want a death wish?

          The lady leads us down the hall in silence. Everyone stares at their hands, twiddling their thumbs. They're all nervous, but all strategizing battles and moves. I walk down the hall, absently fidgeting as well. However, I am not thinking about winning, nor am I thinking about escaping. All I can think about was that one winter day that changed everything.

That one Christmas Day I got a present, ice skates. Yes, they were dirty and ripped, but my parents gave up a lot to get them for me. My mom walked out onto the ice, testing it only because she knew it would make me happy. The ice cracked, and the last image I have of her was the look of terror spreading across her face. My dad, the last image of my dad, a heroic one, was of him falling through the ice to save my mother. Them dying together, probably as they would have wanted it. Their last image of me before death, was of me, too frozen in fear to help them with tears running down my face, screaming. I hoped that if I screamed loud enough, something would happen, something would save them.

I don't care if I escape or not, I have nothing to go back to. No one who cares. No one who even knows I exist. The only person who ever cared was Lindsey, only because she was the only person I could talk to. Lindsey seemed to understand that, and the gravity of each word I spoke. I once talked to Lincoln, only because he seemed to like me. Wait, no. No one likes me, and I won't let them or myself. I can't get attached to yet another person. I can't lose another person I care about.

"Eliza?" Lincoln asks. I turned my head his way, to find his eyes open wide. He brought me back from my thoughts to feel that I have tears streaming down my face.

"I'm fine," I lie, picking up my pace. Lincoln just stays back their with sadden features. I instantly feel bad, but he has to know to stay away from me. He can't get too close.

"We're here," the lady announces. I smile, I get to be alone now. I look around to find that we are in front of two huge mahogany doors. The girl shoves the door open while pushing us in. "Good luck!"

The forest hits us hard, freedom. Our eyes haven't seen such freedom since we got here. Even though it's in a controlled room, we get to feel the sense of freedom.

          Each person runs in different directions. I just walk, nothing too fast or too rushed. Just causal walking. I continue to walk, in search of a nice tree to sleep inside of. If someone finds me beforehand, I don't care.  I never care.

          "Group two has entered the arena,"  an announcer declares. Good for you, I don't care.

          I continue to walk through the forest, realizing that it's turning dark, no powers now. Aww, shucks.  I surprisingly find a tree hollowed big enough for me to sleep comfortably.  I smile and climb in with tired eyes. My eyes close instantly.

          "Mommy, thank you!"  The child screams in delight, practically running out of the house. Her ice skates dangle from her fingertips as her parents struggle to put on a jacket fast enough to catch up with her.

          The little girl and her darling parents live in a trailer off grid. They live a simple life, day to day, living on dimes.  The girl didn't care, she loved her parents too much to even notice.

          The little girl runs to the frozen lake, chasing and dodging the trees, giggling all the while. The parents laugh as they try to catch up with their daughter, the light of their life. 

          When the girl reaches the lake, she steps out into the frozen ice. Before she could move any further out onto the lake, her mother hugs from behind and twirls her off the ice. They giggled harmoniously. 

          The mom decides to step onto the ice herself. She tiptoes to the middle of the lake, then tests the ice. The mom looks at her husband, then at her child before releasing a scream and falling through the ice.

          Her dad screams and runs to help her. He reaches her, but went in too far. He fell through the ice too, trying to save his wife. Such a heroic death. The child just screams, hoping that her screams will do something. Hoping that she will move and save them. She was scared then, and is scared now.

          I wake up with sweat lining my forehead. Gasping, I try an climb out of my tree. The sun is blinding. Then, I spot a figure to the side of me. Danelia causally leans against my tree, checking out her perfectly pampered nails.

"Finally decided to wake up now, did ya?" she asks, stilling looking at her nails.

Confused, and adjusting to my morning grogginess, I ask, "why didn't you just kill me then?"

"Don't you see? I wanted to win fairly. I want a fair fight," Danelia pauses "plus, I didn't want your actual blood on my hands."  She says the words in disgust as if she thinks I have a disease or something. As if she is above me. As if.

"Then, come at me. I'm ready now." I narrow my eyes, and focus on my enteral electricity. The same type of electricity I honed in on the last battle.

"Wait, it can't be a fair fight of you don't have your electricity. Oh well." Danelia teleports to my face, but, on quick reflexes, I punch her in the face. A blood color floods into her face. I can't tell if it's from the anger, or the punch. She tries to teleport back, but I finger gun shoot her with the electricity inside of me. She crumpled to the ground, convulsing.  Once she stopped convulsing, she tries to move, but realizes that she is paralyzed.  She groans softly.

          "I-I will... get...you..ba-ba-back for..thi-thi-this,"  Danelia stammers between gasps and groans.  Rage fills her eyes as she clenches her fists tightly.  Her knuckles are ghost white from holding her fists so firm.

          "Okay, I'm ready because if you could get back at me, you would have done it.  So, clearly, I am the winner here.  You're the loser," I snap, almost regretting those harsh words.  Almost. 

"Danelia is being pulled out. Taken out by Eliza Gething." an announcer announces. Sure enough, a rope descends down, wrapping around Danelia's body, pulling her out of the forest. Cool, she's gone.  I thought her body would never leave.

Thinking it's much safer to stay inside my tree, I climb back inside of it. The bark scrapes against my back, and messes with my hair, but it's safety. Well, safe enough for me. As I lie back down for watching, all I can think as I stay watch it: what a b—!